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TV Life without sky

I ditched Sky and the TV licence a while back, we tend to stream content from either our own media collection (Plex/Emby/JellyFin) or Prime or the other on demand services, as long as you avoid 'live' TV, you currently don't need any form of licence. In terms of access, a FireTV 4K or AppleTv 4K would be my personal choice. Things have become slightly awkward with Amazon at present due top the OS change and culling oif certain apps from the app store on the older hardware, but that's not really been a problem for us. Be warned, if you ditch the licence, and don't inform them you are removing the implied right of access, they will treat this as an invitation to come round to check you don't need a licence, you can ofcourse tell them to jog on, and are under no obligation to let them in anyway.
 
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Manhattan Aero for Freely or Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen for sideloading seem the best IPTV based on VFM.
 
I have Freesat for home when I left Sky. It's good but wouldn't go out of way to have a dish installed. I'm a bit old school and like to record somt things.

TV has freeview which is OK.

Also have a Manhatton Aero for TV in turkey via a VPN in router. Really like the Manhatton, so good as no aerial needed and works really well.

Also have a coupld of nvidia sheilds with Tivimate for some IP :)
 
Scooby-DoobyDoo said:
I have Freesat for home when I left Sky. It's good but wouldn't go out of way to have a dish installed. I'm a bit old school and like to record somt things.

TV has freeview which is OK.

Also have a Manhatton Aero for TV in turkey via a VPN in router. Really like the Manhatton, so good as no aerial needed and works really well.

Also have a coupld of nvidia sheilds with Tivimate for some IP :)
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I stopped with the whole TV thing back when ntl/VM cracked down on the FUN cards./Nagra 3 iirc. It was more enjoyable hacking the TV than actually watching it. Satellite never appealed as it was just more channels I'd never watch. Dabbled with ip stuff for a bit. Amazing, but never watched it. far better things than watching tv to be doing.
 
whitecrook said:
I stopped with the whole TV thing back when ntl/VM cracked down on the FUN cards./Nagra 3 iirc. It was more enjoyable hacking the TV than actually watching it. Satellite never appealed as it was just more channels I'd never watch. Dabbled with ip stuff for a bit. Amazing, but never watched it. far better things than watching tv to be doing.
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picked up an amazon fire stick 4k max 8gig version off some old dear on facebook market place £20 still sealed plugged this in when i got home and i feel i may stick with the stick :)
quite a nice front end and still able to sideload apps onto it

3 mths before i can leave sky :(
 
whitecrook said:
not sure he has a dish, given his current system is ip only. also what ip box? don't reveal too much information, it might be helpful.
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See #22 I’ve ordered a Xiaomi TV S 3rd Gen to replace the aging FireTV. Oh and stop being so snarky.
 
I will probably cancel when the subscription runs out and probably get a streaming service of some derivative. It depends what they offer, ideally I'd like Sky Sports F1, I had that on Now TV, but the actual Now TV interface I found worse than that of Sky.

It's also a bit frustrating the number of add-ons that Sky force you to have, things like you can have Sky Sports for £X.XX, but you have to get Sky Cinema for £X.XX, then charging for UHD content. It all adds up, along with the annual price increase, kept within the % that gives you right to cancel early, so you have to just accept the price increase. There are a lot of great things, I find the Sky Puck to be a great piece of kit, even though I went through a month of trying to get one replaced, Sky support just kept telling me to try resetting it, or rebooting it, because it couldn't cope with 4K content.

I do think they would get a vast increase in customers if they cut costs across the board and looked after their long serving customers, people would probably move from the other emerging services.
 
Jamauk said:
I will probably cancel when the subscription runs out and probably get a streaming service of some derivative. It depends what they offer, ideally I'd like Sky Sports F1
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Do u just pay for a service and then decide if theres something to watch?

As in you watch ‘tv’ rather than ‘programmes’?
 
whitecrook said:
Do u just pay for a service and then decide if theres something to watch?

As in you watch ‘tv’ rather than ‘programmes’?
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I don't generally have specific programmes that I watch, There's lots of channels, but to get some of the more premium channels that I do watch such as Sky Sports you have to add a lot of packages before that. It's very cleverly marketed and it is IMO the best brand there is right now. When my contract runs out I will probably look to change, there's a lot of new services emerging that could be of interest in the future, the TV industry isn't exactly slow moving.
 
I have now got all the free apps I need on my Xiaomi TV S 3rd Gen. If there is something I want to watch on a paid for service I will sign up for Apple, Amazon or whatever and then cancel once I have watched everything.
 
Yeah I cancelled Sky and TV Licence think it was around 2018 ish... never looked back. So much entertainment and ways to watch simply pointless to me.
 
chili said:
picked up an amazon fire stick 4k max 8gig version off some old dear on facebook market place £20 still sealed plugged this in when i got home and i feel i may stick with the stick :)
quite a nice front end and still able to sideload apps onto it
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Amazon are getting wise though one of my sideloaded apps got blocked.
 
Mine's getting binned when the deal ends in Mar next year. Totally sick of everything being rinsed in ads. Other than movies, literally every channel feels like an ad serving platform mixed in with a little bit content in between. I'm still on Q as when I tried Sky Stream, sound sync issues and the ads were a bigger problem so sent that back and went back to Q.

I'm due a new TV as well so will probably get one with Freely built in + my streaming services and as I'm getting back into Bluray and ripping them to my Plex server again so I dont think I'll miss that much other than the Footy, but I guess I'll just have to swallow that pill and get on with.
 
Haven't had sky in 9 years. Far too overpriced for what it is.
Plex does most of what I need with a few paid for streaming services.
 
so sorry to hear of your loss

i can't comment on any subscription TV services apart the BBC Iplayer service. which is, in my books, the best out there. granted there are no recently released blockbuster movies, but lots of classics (the 'Godfather' trio was a recent addition). some of their own, and partner organisations have, over the years produced some outstanding material: drama, comedy, documentary, music, sport (cut down as it is)

what it will boil down to is what do you like to watch?

i am a complete beeb addict. there's always something which fits the mood i'm in. even old comedies from the early 80's are there: 'The Young Ones', 'Yes Minister', 'Yes Prime minister', 'To the Manor born'. comedies which are pretty safe. and not designed to all-out offend the sensibilities . their program list is quite exhaustive. and has the advantage of being 'familiar TV' but i don't know if that's what you're looking for

i don't want to suffer the banhammer for mentioning it, but even 'Mrs. Brown's Boys' is amongst their comedy selection. however; i would personally say that 'Mrs. Brown's Boys' is less comedy. and more masochism :D
 
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